Peter Anderson

Pharmacy

Dr Peter Anderson

BSc, BSc (Hons I), PhD (UNE)

Lecturer in Microbiology
Orange
Building 1001 Room 89

Dr. Anderson completed doctoral studies at the University of New England, New South Wales in 2001.  His doctoral research was on the accumulation of a trace metal, cobalt, needed to synthesise vitamin B12 in the obligate anaerobic bacterium, Selenomonas ruminantium.  In 2001, he moved to Utah (USA) to take up a postdoctoral research position at the University of Utah, with John Roth's genetics lab. About a year later, the entire lab moved to the University of California, Davis.  In John Roth's lab, Dr. Anderson learned to use bacterial genetic techniques to determine the final steps involved in the synthesis of vitamin B12 cofactors in Salmonella, a model organism for B12 synthesis.  A spin-off from this research was that it allowed the synthesis of carbon-14 vitamin B12 and, therefore, the use of carbon dating techniques that are sensitive enough to follow the vitamin's complicated uptake in human and was corresponding author for this work in published in Proceedings of the National Academy of USA (PNAS) and corresponding patent.  In October 2006, Dr. Anderson moved from Davis, California to Monash University, Clayton and worked on the red blood cell stage of the malaria parasite. In July 2009, he took up a faculty position at Charles Sturt University, Orange, where he works now in the School of Dentistry and Medical Sciences.

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I teach into the following courses: medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, health sciences & food science. Within these courses, I have broad experience and expertise across many disciplines, including genetics, biochemistry and microbiology, teaching subjects that include microbiology, immunology, dental microbiology, biochemistry, genetics, and nutrition.  In 2012 was awarded an Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) for my part in developing the first-year microbiology course at CSU, which I now convene, and which teaches around 600 students per year.

My currently active research projects are:

  • Antibiotic discovery: characterisation of a new antibiotic produced by Rouxiella badensis, undertaken by PhD student and NSW Health Scholarship recipient Saina Paul in collaboration with Dr Tim Kudinha at NSW Health, Pathology West (Orange).  The importance of the research is in discovering new classes of antibiotics.
  • Periodontitis: correlation of the parasite Trichomonas tenax with the periodontitis disease process, undertaken by practicing dentist Chia-Wen Yeh for her BSc honours in collaboration with A/Prof. Alexandra Jones at CSU.  The importance of this research is in working towards improved therapies for patients with periodontitis.
  • A new test for human vitamin B12 absorption using carbon-13 vitamin B12.  This CSU patented research completed proof-of-concept in human in 2022, being enabled by Discovery Translation funding to PJA.  The importance of this research is that it represents the best way to diagnose people that have pernicious anaemia (vitamin B12 malabsorption).
  • Epidemiology of muti-drug resistance bacterial carriage in rural populations. The first section of this research is determination of the carriage rate of MRSA in healthy rural people, undertaken by Charles Sturt Doctor of Medicine student Jessica Skelly.  The importance of the research is in developing better use of our limited antibiotic resources.